20 people trapped for 90 minutes in faulty elevator at Gurgaon Mall

Twenty people, including six female employees of a multi-national company, went through a harrowing time on Saturday after being stuck in an elevator at Sector 53’s South Point Mall for close to 90 minutes.

Twenty people, including six female employees of a multi-national company, were stuck in an elevator at Sector 53’s South Point Mall for close to 90 minutes at midnight onSaturday.(HT Photo)

Twenty people, including six female employees of a multi-national company, went through a harrowing time on Saturday after being stuck in an elevator at Sector 53’s South Point Mall for close to 90 minutes.

The women, according to the police, were off-duty and were returning home after a party when the elevator got stuck between the second and third floors. Two of the women fell unconscious due to lack of oxygen, said the police.

Some people stuck later called the elevator control room, but the staff could not rectify the technical fault after which the police were called. A police team soon reached the spot and after assessing the situation broke a glass on the backside of the elevator, cracked open the glass wall of the lift and rescue the people.

The police control room received information about the incident at Saturday midnight, after which Sector 53 police station was informed and a team rushed to the spot.

“When we reached the spot, two women had already fallen unconscious. The elevator was stuck in the middle of two floors and was not moving in either direction. We had to break the back glass with a hammer and then break the glass wall of the elevator,” said Rahul Dev, SHO sector 53 police station. The police then used a ladder to get people out of the lift.

The police have not registered any case in the matter with Dev stating that a case could be filed if a complained is received.

Saturday’s incident was not a stray one as Gurgaon has witnessed a number of tragedies involving elevators in the last few years.

On April 7, 2009, Nishant Sharma, an employee with marketing and consulting company Sapient, was killed after getting stuck under an elevator when he was trying to go to his office on the 10th floor of Cyber Greens building in DLF Phase 3. His body was crushed after the elevator suddenly moved and trapped his leg. He was rushed to a private hospital with cardiac and respiratory seizure where he died on April 11.

Five years later, on the night of May 26, 2014, eighteen members of a family, including children, from Sushant Lok were trapped for more than an hour inside an elevator at a deluxe hotel on MG Road. The police had to break the glass of the elevator and rescue the family. The police later arrested two bouncers who did not help the victims and even dissuaded the police from breaking the elevator’s glass.

On April 22 this year, an elevator at Central Park-2 on Sohna road fell to the lower basement with a family reportedly stuck inside.